A package of plain futility

It is with cynicism that we notice that Bill S-5 – Canada’s tobacco plain-packaging bill — concluded its second reading in the House of Commons on Wednesday. After all, as Australia was marking ( but hardly celebrating) the fifth anniversary of its introduction of tobacco plain packaging last week, the most recent government data show that the policy has wholly failed to reduce smoking rates across the country. Not only has the policy not achieved its stated aims, but the Department of Health has admitted that the post-plain- packaging era marks the first time- period in over 20 years during which smoking rates have not declined.

Australia is not alone. Two other countries have since implemented plain packaging, and while data are not yet available following the U. K.’s May 2017 introduction of the measure, France’s experience is mirroring Australia’s policy flop, with smoking rates showing no decrease. Just last week the country’s health minister, Agnès Buzyn, stated in the National Assembly that “plain packaging has therefore not reduced official tobacco sales.”

The answer to reducing the number of smokers is not, and has never been, plain packaging. And the perverse effect of the policy is not limited to a lack of smoking- rate decline: the measure also has a significant increase effect on the sale of contraband tobacco products. Australia’s introduction of the legislation corresponds with a significant increase in the market share of illegal tobacco in that country, rising over 25 per cent in the first two years. Plain packaging forces legal companies like ours to abandon their symbols of legitimacy and makes it easier to counterfeit tobacco products. Canada must take a step back and look at the data. It’s the reasonable thing to do.

With Bill S-5, which mandates plain packaging, now proceeding past its second reading in the House of Commons, Imperial Tobacco Canada wishes to remind legislators of the inefficiency of plain packaging observed in other countries, and urges them to focus their attention on policies that are much more likely to result in benefits to public health.

Imperial Tobacco Canada supports the objective set forth by Health Canada to reduce the smoking rate to five per cent by 2035, and believes the best way of achieving this goal is by offering consumers less harmful alternatives, such as vaping products. There is sound evidence telling us that vaping products are less risky than traditional cigarettes.

Our government needs to embrace the harm-reduction model supported by other governments and public health experts, and provide Canadians with access to legal regulated vaping products as soon as possible.

FRANCE’S EXPERIENCE IS MIRRORING AUSTRALIA’S TOBACCO POLICY FLOP.